Grandma’s Chest: The Didukh

That evening Grandma’s flat smelled of kutia and little pies. Snow was falling outside the window, and in the kitchen Mum was clinking the bowls.

"It’s Christmas Eve," said Grandma. "And our pokut is empty. That won’t do."

"What’s a pokut?" asked Mirko.

"The best corner of the house. The festive table stands there, and the dearest guest is seated there." Grandma looked around. "Only where did I put my glasses?"

"They’re on your head," said Mirko.

"Well, would you look at that," laughed Grandma. "Then let’s go to the chest."

The chest stood under the window: old, dark green, with red and yellow flowers on the lid and an iron heart-shaped lock. Above it on the windowsill, in a clay jug, stuck up a bunch of dry golden grass. In summer this grass had grown in a long box on the balcony, and Mirko had watered it. Grandma called the box "my field", and Mirko laughed: what kind of field is that, if it fits on a balcony?

Grandma knocked three times on the lid:

"Knock-knock, who lives here?"

Creak! The lid went up. And Yarnball the cat leapt in, hop! and was already sitting in the chest among the towels, as if he lived there himself.

"Yarnball, move over!" Mirko dived a hand under a towel. He always wanted to touch everything first.

Something rustled under the towel. Mirko pulled out a bunch of old ears of wheat. They were pale gold, light as feathers, tied with a red thread. Shoor-shoor, the ears whispered.

"Is it a broom?" asked Mirko.

"What broom!" Grandma was quite offended. "It’s a didukh."

"A didukh? Like a granddad?"

"Nearly. The didukh is the spirit of the harvest, the granddad of all the ears of wheat. Long ago in the village, when the wheat was gathered, the last sheaf from the field, a big bundle of ears, was carried home. And on Christmas Eve it was set in the pokut, the place of honour. So that summer would stay as a guest in the house all winter long."

"And where is this one from?" Mirko carefully sniffed the ears. They smelled of dust and sunshine.

"This one is from Great-Grandpa Ivan. Your mum was just your age then, and we went to Great-Grandpa’s village for Christmas Eve."

Grandma sat down on a stool by the chest, and Mirko settled beside her on the rug.

"That evening there was such a blizzard that the road disappeared. The aunts and uncles never made it to us. The table was laid, but there were no guests. Your mum sat under the window, sad, drawing on the glass with her nose. And on top of that, our kitten had gone missing somewhere since morning. Orange as a pumpkin, so that’s what we called him: Pumpkin."

"And then?"

"And then Great-Grandpa Ivan put on his sheepskin coat and said, 'You don’t start the holiday without a didukh.' And he went across the yard to the barn where the grain was kept. Snow up to his knees, the wind snatching his hat. He was gone a long time. Then we looked out of the window: a sheaf was coming across the yard. By itself! Tall, taller than Great-Grandpa, and underneath only boots: stomp, stomp."

Mirko laughed.

"Great-Grandpa set the sheaf in the pokut and said, 'Well, there. A guest has come. And a guest must be entertained.' He’d hardly said it when the didukh began to rustle! Shurkh-shurkh. It swayed left. It swayed right. Then it hopped. And it sneezed: 'Achoo!'"

"The didukh sneezed?" Mirko jumped.

"It sneezed," Grandma nodded. "And it started to dance. Your mum laughed so hard she forgot all about the window. And Great-Grandpa just twirled his moustache and winked. That’s how the didukh saved our Christmas Eve from boredom."

"That’s not how it was!"

Mum stood in the doorway with a bowl of dumplings.

"The didukh didn’t dance by itself," she said. "I saw it: a tail was sticking out from the bottom. A ginger one!"

"Pumpkin!" gasped Mirko.

"That’s him! He’d slept all day in the barn, in the warm sheaf. And Great-Grandpa grabbed the sheaf and carried it into the house, cat and all. Pumpkin woke up: where am I? Ears of wheat all around, tickling his nose, so he sneezed. And then he jumped out, straight onto Great-Grandpa’s shoulder!"

"So what," said Grandma, straightening the glasses on her head. "Isn’t that what I said? The spirit of the harvest. Ginger, and with whiskers."

Now all three of them were laughing. And in the chest something rustled: shoor-shoor. It was Yarnball, who had burrowed into the towels and was pretending he wasn’t there at all.

"Grandma, why does the didukh lie in the chest?" asked Mirko. "It’s supposed to stand in the pokut."

"After the holidays the didukh was taken apart," Grandma explained. "The grain was beaten out of the ears and kept until spring. And in spring it was mixed with the seed grain and sown in the field. So that the new field would grow out of the old one. And this little bunch Great-Grandpa tied for your mum, from that very sheaf, in memory of Pumpkin."

"But where will we get ears of wheat?" Mirko said sadly. "We don’t have a field."

"What do you mean, we don’t?" Grandma winked and took the jug down from the windowsill.

Mirko looked closer. It wasn’t grass at all! On every stalk sat an ear: plump, golden, with thin little whiskers.

"But this is from the balcony! I watered it!"

"You watered it," Grandma nodded. "And in spring I sowed a handful of grains from the old didukh in the box. Just like Great-Grandpa once did."

Mirko looked at the old ears, then at the new ones. They looked alike, like Grandma and Mum.

They sat down at the table. Grandma gathered the ears together, and Mirko held them so they wouldn’t spill. Grandma spread the stalks at the bottom like a fan, and the didukh stood up on its own little feet, like a tiny sheaf. At the top they bent the ears over and wound them with the red thread.

"One, and around. Two, and once more. Three, and a bow!" counted Mirko.

Yarnball jumped onto a chair, stretched his neck out from behind the jug and sniffed the didukh. Achoo!

"Bless you, granddad of all the ears of wheat!" said Mum.

They put the little didukh on the cupboard by the festive table, in the best corner. And there was the pokut in a city flat. Mum brought the kutia, Grandma the compote. And Mirko leaned toward the didukh and gently knocked on the cupboard:

"Knock-knock, who lives here?"

Shurkh, the ears answered.

Summer from the balcony lived there. And a tiny bit of Great-Grandpa Ivan’s summer too.

"Grandma, will we sow its grains in spring?"

"We will," said Grandma. "That’s how the didukh lives: from the field into the house, and from the house back into the field."